The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

Jul 17, 2025 3:22 PM

Author:Rainer Maria Rilke

While his old furniture rots in storage, Malte Laurids Brigge lives in a cheap room in Paris, with little but a library reader's card to distinguish him from the city's untouchables. Every person he sees seems to carry their death with them, and he thinks of the deaths, and ghosts, of his aristocratic family, of which only he remains. The only novel by one of the greatest writers of poetry in German, the semi-autobiographical Notebooks is an uneasy, compelling and poetic book that anticipated Sartre and is full of passages of lyrical brilliance.

Michael Hulse's new translation perfectly conveys the unsettling beauty of the original and is accompanied by an introduction on Rilke's life and the biographical and literary influences on the Notebooks. This edition also includes suggested further reading, a chronology and notes.

Reviews

Captures the pain of loss and longing ... but her background in stand-up comedy spills onto every page, making this touching novel so funny

—— Irish Independent

Insightful and moving ... defiantly irreverent

—— Sunday Independent

Brilliantly written ... an absolute page-turner

—— Bibliofemme.com

Morrison strives to tell a new kind of love story sensitive to modern anxieties

—— Sunday Herald

The absorption of two lovers can make the reader feel like a gooseberry, but Morrison leaves you aching for their reunion

—— Arena

Corporate filmmaker Tom and a script doctor Meg have a week long affair when he visits New York. They want it to continue but he has to go home to Scotland and his son...will the distance and their weaknesses sink their romance before its begun?

—— Colin Waters , The Sunday Herald

Grimly, intelligently comic as if written by an Asian Joseph Heller

—— Daily Telegraph

If this rich stew of disparate ingredients puts you in mind of Salman Rushdie, you wouldn't be far from the truth. His work, along with that of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Joseph Heller, is a low-key but persistent influence

—— Sunday Times

An exciting, accomplished new literary voice

—— Irish Times

A very funny satire-cum-thriller

—— Sally Cousins , Sunday Telegraph Seven

Somewhere in mid-air between Waugh and Rushdie (with an shade of Catch 22 hovering near by) this tremendous novel makes a tragicomic weather all its own

—— Boyd Tonkin , The Independent

Justly Booker longlisted last year, this debut is a dazzling one-off

—— Hermione Eyre , The Observer

Provocative and comic debut.

—— The Times

A true touch of originality ... showcases a promising new talent.

—— Colin Waters , Sunday Herald

Dry, droll and insightful

—— The Independent

Bodice-ripping romp through the West

—— Times

Missy by Strong and memorable female characters throughout this enjoyable novel

—— http://meandmybigmouth.typepad.com/scottpack

Witty and effortlessly fluid. His books are laugh-out-loud funny

—— Arabella Weir

The funniest writer ever to put words to paper

—— Hugh Laurie

The greatest comic writer ever

—— Douglas Adams

P.G. Wodehouse wrote the best English comic novels of the century

—— Sebastian Faulks

Sublime comic genius

—— Ben Elton

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